Snow

October 25, 2004
"This sparely worded, amply imagined story captures all the eagerness children feel about a snowfall," said our Best Books citation. "Prankish art begins as gray watercolor washes, with flecks of snow gradually changing a cityscape into a frozen fairyland." Ages 3-up.

Books, particularly children's books, often transport readers to lands unknown or not yet explored. Books can be Aladdin's magic carpet or Emily Dickinson's frigate that takes us lands away. Picture books, with their evocative illustrations, amplify the adventures; better still, the picture book experience enhanced by audio interpretation. With SNOW, listeners will travel to Eastern Europe to join a small boy, full of hope, as the first flake of snow falls. Music, positively sprightly, accompanies the flakes that spin and twirl and develop into a blizzard as the adults throughout the town scoff at the possibility. Children, who so well know the uses of enchantment and blind faith, will rejoice in its splendor. T.B. (c) AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine


When next you see a sky gray with clouds and a ring around a hazy sun, that is the time to listen to SNOW--at best, while also absorbing the Caldecott Honor illustrations from a printed edition. As Shulevitz captures the excitement of a first snowfall, unobtrusive narrator Sean Schemmel quietly reads the spare text. His tone is subdued and his pacing leisurely. Soft background music accompanies Schemmel, letting the illustrations speak for themselves. And speak they do! So much more happens than the text suggests--exuberant storybook characters frolic, radios and televisions talk, unimpressed citizens bustle along, and, all the while, the boy and his dog are on top of the world. A.R. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine